On the apparent theory that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, a group of American truckers has decided that shutting down Washington is the way to get what you want these days, and is planning its own shutdown.

The group, which calls itself “Truckers for the Constitution” is planning a go-slow ride on Friday that will deliberately clog the Washington D.C. beltway — the ring circling the city that is the main route both for commuters and drivers bypassing the city core. Their plan is to cruise the beltway three-lanes across, preventing traffic from moving. They’ll leave one lane open for emergency and police vehicles, but insist any other vehicle hoping to pass the blockade must display a sign offering support for their protest.

They appear to have studied congressional tactics closely, especially those being deployed by the Tea Party faction within the Republicans. They want what they want, and aren’t open to compromise. Their demands are somewhat outlandish. They’re happy to disrupt other people’s lives to get what they want. And they’re willing to “negotiate”, as long as “negotiate” means giving in to their demands.

Their main demand is for the arrest of congressional members they don’t like. “If all I get is one or two congressmen walked out of there in handcuffs, that will be a shot across the bow that will ripple across all branches of government,” Earl Conlon, one of the organizers, told U.S. News and World Report. Their alleged crime is having violated the Constitution, plus passing laws that annoy the truckers. These include limits on idling, tougher fuel efficiency standards, and perceived intrusions on the privacy of their cabs.

They also claim President Barack Obama is a traitor, and want him impeached. His “crime” was to agree to provide weapons to opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This is one of several areas where the logic of the crusade gets a bit murky, since Obama only reluctantly agreed to the weapons supplies, and only under intense right-wing pressure. Sen. John McCain, one of his harshest critics on Syria, demanded the shipments for months, as did many Republicans upset at the president’s hesitation to get more involved in the crisis.

The truckers seem unaware of the GOP position, though, and want other Democrats — specifically House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, arrested along with Obama.

In addition to the weapons shipments, the truckers maintain Obama violated the Constitution by agreeing to a delay in a crucial element of his new healthcare law. Responding to requests from employers, the president agreed to a one-year delay in some aspects of the new rules, to provide more time for them to comply. This too fit with a Republican campaign to delay or defund Obamacare, which the truckers appear not to have realized. Mr. Conlon says the group is hoping Washington police will agree to arrest some legislators for them and cites a “people’s grand jury” they appear to have invented. “If they refuse to do it, by the power of the people of the United States and the people’s grand jury, they don’t want to do it, we will. … We the people will find a way.”

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)The tramway under Captiol Hill is all but deserted thanks to the federal government shutdown, which has stopped all tours of the capitol building.

They’re not alone in their notion that the president has broken the law by implementing the healthcare law, even though it was passed by both houses of Congress and affirmed by the Supreme Court. Rep. Michele Bachmann, the Tea Party-affiliated representative from Minnesota whose campaign for the Republican presidential nomination made her a frequent target of late-night talk show jokes, maintains the one-year delay (which her party supports) was arbitrarily made on a Twitter tweet and made the bill illegal.

“President Obama changed the bill just by tweeting it out, so he’s asking us to change a bill that he’s tweeted – that’s against the law,” she said on the weekend.

In actuality, the concession was announced in July in a statement posted to the U.S. Treasury web site. Bachmann is standing her ground, however, and told a radio host in Saturday that by shipping weapons to Syrian rebels — who she says are terrorists — Obama is bringing on the end of the world.

“Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand,” Bachmann said. “And so when we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; that these days would be as the days of Noah. We are seeing that in our time. Yes it gives us fear in some respects because we want the retirement that our parents enjoyed. Well they will, if they know Jesus Christ.”

It remains unclear whether the days of Noah will arrive before the truckers can complete their protest on Friday. In either case, it’s unlikely to be good news for commuters.

T. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party favourite, announced Wednesday she will not run for another term in the U.S. House, saying her decision had nothing to do with ongoing investigations over finances related to her unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Bachmann, in a video posted on her website, also said her decision “was not influenced by any concerns about my being re-elected.”

The polarizing conservative narrowly won a fourth term last year in her suburban Minneapolis district over Democrat Jim Graves, a hotel chain founder who is running again in 2014. A spokesman said Bachmann wouldn’t be available for interviews, but her former chief of staff said he suspects she was anticipating a tough battle ahead and seemed to be stuck in place in Congress.

Related

“This is a great chance to exit stage right rather than have a knockdown, drag-out re-election fight,” said Ron Carey, also an ex-state GOP chairman. “The reality also set in that she is not a favourite of Republican leadership, so she is not going to be rising up to a committee chair or rising up in leadership.”

In her video, Bachmann also said her decision “was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign” last year. In January, a former Bachmann aide filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming the candidate made improper payments to an Iowa state senator who was the state chairman of her 2012 presidential run. The aide, Peter Waldron, also accused Bachmann of other FEC violations.

Bachmann had given few clues she was considering leaving Congress. Her fundraising operation was churning out the regular pitches for the small-dollar donations that Bachmann collected so well over the years, and she had an ad running on Twin Cities television talking about her role in opposing President Barack Obama’s health law. The early timing of the ad suggested she was preparing for a tough fight against Graves.

Without the polarizing Bachmann on the ticket, Republicans could have an easier time holding a district that leans more heavily in the GOP direction than any other in Minnesota. A parade of hopefuls was expected. By Wednesday morning, state Rep. Matt Dean, a former House majority leader, said he was inclined to run.

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty ImagesRepublican presidential hopefuls take part in the Republican presidential debate on national security November 22, 2011 at the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. From left are: Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum; Texas Rep. Ron Paul; Texas Gov. Rick Perry; former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney; businessman Herman Cain; former House speaker Newt Gingrich; Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann; and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. The debate is hosted by CNN in partnership with the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

“It is something I have thought about in the past if Michele were to not run again,” Dean told The Associated Press. “It’s not something that I just started thinking about this morning.”

Graves said he thought Bachmann had “read the tea leaves.”

“The district is changing,” the Democrat said in an interview Wednesday with KARE-TV in Minneapolis. “They want somebody who really does have some business background and understands the economy and can get things done in Washington and back in the district.”

Andy Aplikowski, who has long been active in the district’s Republican Party chapter, said he expected Bachmann to run again but can understand why she didn’t.

“It’s a grueling thing to be in Congress. It’s a grueling thing to be Michele Bachmann in Congress,” he said. “Every move you make is criticized and put under a microscope.”

Bachmann’s strongly conservative views propelled her into politics, and once there, she never backed down.

She was a suburban mother of five in 1999 when she ran for a Minnesota school board seat because she thought state standards were designed to teach students values and beliefs.

She lost that race, but won a state Senate seat a year later. Once in St. Paul, she seized on gay marriage as an issue and led a charge to legally define marriage in Minnesota as between one man and one woman. That failed, but Bachmann had laid the foundation with social conservatives to help propel her into Congress in 2006.

In Washington, she turned to fiscal issues, attacking Democrats and President Barack Obama for government bailouts and the health care overhaul. Even in her early years in Congress, Bachmann frequently took those views to right-leaning cable talk programs, cultivating her national image even as she built a formidable fundraising base with like-minded viewers outside Minnesota.

I will continue to work overtime for the next 18 months in Congress defending the same Constitutional Conservative values we have worked so hard on together

But her penchant for provocative rhetoric sometimes backfired. She was hammered in 2008 for saying Obama might have “anti-American views,” a statement that prompted a rare retreat by Bachmann and made her race that year closer than it would have been. She was also criticized by her fellow Republicans last July for making unsubstantiated allegations that an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had family ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Her White House bid got off to a promising start, with a win in an Iowa GOP test vote. But Bachmann quickly faded and finished last when the real voting started in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses, a result that caused her to drop out. Saddled with debt, Bachmann opted to campaign again for her Minnesota seat and squeaked through.

But the failed presidential campaign continued to dog her. Allegations of improper payments prompted ethics inquiries. Bachmann also faced a lawsuit from a former aide that alleged someone on the congresswoman’s team stole a private email list of home-school supporters for use in the campaign. That case is pending.

On Wednesday, Bachmann – a vocal opponent of the Obama administration – promised her supporters, “I will continue to work overtime for the next 18 months in Congress defending the same Constitutional Conservative values we have worked so hard on together.”

As for her plans beyond Congress, she said, “There is no future option or opportunity, be it directly in the political arena or otherwise, that I won’t be giving serious consideration if it can help save and protect our great nation.”

Bachmann’s success in the talk media world led industry analysts to say she could easily move into a gig as a host.

Bachmann has been mentioned as a potential challenger to first-term Democratic Sen. Al Franken, but she has given little indication that she would take that step.

From high above the Vatican to a Chicago synagogue in revolt the world of religion continually spews up news you can use.

Female Roman Catholic priests set to storm Vatican

Last Sunday The New York Times did a beautiful photo spread on three female Roman Catholic priests. Well, not really priests in the official sense but in the sense of protest against an archaic tradition. The accompanying essay informs readers that the Vatican refuses to consider ordination of women “and uses its powers to silence those who speak out.” If I didn’t know better the essay feels a tad anti-Catholic. The Vatican, of course, comes off as of a bunch of overbearing male bullies who refuse to get with the times. They note a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests that now have “100 ordained women priests” as a sign the tide is turning against the Vatican. I wonder if Pope Benedict is set to cave?

Scientology shocker

A 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll has found 70% of Americans do not consider Scientology a real religion. Hard to believe given all the positive publicity Scientology has received over the years. Still 13% said that the church of Tom Cruise, John Travolta and other celebrities is a real religion. Which means more than one in 10 Americans put Scientology in the same league as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The poll said there only about 100,000 members in the United States.

You mean Michele Bachmann is not Jewish?

Win McNamee/Getty Images

The Chicago Tribune reports that a local rabbi is in hot water for inviting the former presidential candidate to his synagogue. The Tribune quoted one congregant who was not amused: “The holiness of the room and the holiness of the evening was greatly diminished for me, if not completely destroyed,” said Gary Sircus, who stormed out of the synagogue where he has observed the High Holidays for 25 years. “Our congregation values and embodies tolerance, compassion, respect for individual rights, intelligence, science — all of the things that I think Michele Bachmann stands against.” It’s funny that as a sign of tolerance Mr. Sircus and others stormed out of the room. The rabbi has since apologized to those offended members of his flock.

When a placard simply will not do

The BBC reports that a man has scaled the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City to protest EU measures that hurt small businesses. Exactly why picked St. Peter’s instead of EU headquarters in Brussels was not clear — could be Italy has better weather, better food, more beautiful people and the whole “closer to God thing”. Meantime the protest did not interfere with Pope Benedict XVI usual Wednesday service held in the square below.

Recently, Osteen made news for squirming in his chair while a CNN panel queried him about homosexuality. Eventually, Osteen seemed to both affirm that being gay is not a choice and that homosexuality is sinful (“not God’s best,” in a very Osteenian formulation). (Osteen was slightly more forthright about his views in an interview with Oprah earlier this year).While Osteen in the wake of the recent interview caught flak from both evangelicals and progressives, his views are very much in the American mainstream. I’m not sure of the survey’s reliability, but a May 2012 poll found Americans closely divided on the issue. If one surveyed Americans and gave them a “not God’s best” option, it might well clear fifty percent. Thus, neither side really should find Osteen’s comments surprising.

WASHINGTON —Senior Republican senator John McCain on Wednesday strongly defended Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton against unsubstantiated allegations that her family has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, repudiating charges levelled by House Republican Michele Bachmann.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. McCain praised the work and patriotism of Abedin, a State Department employee who has been a constant presence at Clinton’s side. Without mentioning Rep. Bachmann by name, McCain assailed the attacks on Abedin, a Muslim, as an example of ignorance and fear that defames the spirit of the nation.

“Huma represents what is best about America: the daughter of immigrants, who has risen to the highest levels of our government on the basis of her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies so fully.” McCain said. “I am proud to know Huma, and to call her my friend.”

Bachmann, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, made the allegations in a June letter to the State Department as well as in a letter Wednesday to fellow Minnesota lawmaker Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat.

Related

Bachmann said Abedin’s late father, mother and brother are connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations. She cited foreign media reports and an outside study and added that Abedin’s position “affords her routine access to the secretary and policy-making.”

In her letter to Ellison, Bachmann wrote, “Given what we know from the international media about Ms. Abedin’s documented family connections with the extremist Muslim Brotherhood,” how was she not disqualified for a U.S. security clearance.

McCain pointed out that Abedin’s father died two decades ago and that the congresswoman failed to provide “one instance of an action, decision or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State Department that would lend credence to the charge that she is promoting anti-American activities within our government.”

Clinton recently travelled to Egypt and urged President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi of the military to work together. The two are in a power struggle.

In his letter to Bachmann, Ellison said the congresswoman, who was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, provided no information to substantiate her claims about Abedin. Ellison also is a Muslim.

McCain, who described himself as someone who understands the pain “when a person’s character, reputation and patriotism are attacked,” criticized Bachmann’s actions.

“When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it,” he said.

In a statement, Bachmann said the letters were being distorted and her intent was “to outline the serious national security concerns I had and ask for answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical group’s access to top Obama administration officials.”

Abedin worked for Clinton when Clinton served as a U.S. senator representing New York and sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Abedin is married to former Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York.

———Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Brian Bakst of St. Paul, Minnesota, contributed to this report.

Related

“Congresswoman Bachmann’s husband is of Swiss descent so she has been eligible for dual-citizenship since they got married in 1978,” said her spokeswoman Becky Rogness said in a statement given to the Politico.com website and other US media.

The lawmaker from Minnesota, 55, who currently is running for reelection to the House of Representatives, reportedly in just the past several weeks went through the application process for Swiss citizenship, along with some other members of her family.

“Recently some of their children wanted to exercise their eligibility for dual-citizenship so they went through the process as a family,” the spokeswoman said.

Agence France-Presse with files from The Associated Press

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/09/michele-bachmann-granted-dual-citizenship-with-switzerland/feed/5stdMichele Bachmann in March 2012Kelly McParland: How to be severely conservative and lose an electionhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/13/kelly-mcparland-how-to-be-severely-conservative-and-lose-an-election/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/13/kelly-mcparland-how-to-be-severely-conservative-and-lose-an-election/#commentsMon, 13 Feb 2012 13:05:55 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=67357

Ontario’s conservative opposition leader, Tim Hudak, assured party members on the weekend that he has studied the failures of the most recent provincial election, and learned the error of his ways. “We ran a campaign designed not to lose, as opposed to running flat out to win.” Sounding a bit like Colin Firth channelling the stuttering George VI in The King’s Speech (“I have a voice!”), he admitted his “real voice” didn’t come through.

“This is my voice. Hear it now as I commit to a conservative campaign that we can all be proud of, to a platform that says what it means.”

Coincidentally, a day earlier, Republican presidential wannabe Mitt Romney was trying for the umpteenth time to close the deal with his party’s conservatives members, insisting he really truly is one of them.

Both men appear to have reached a similar conclusion. Having failed thus far to ignite interest among voters by being conservative, the solution is to be even more conservative. Even though there’s little indication that, outside certain wings of their own parties, voters are equally hungry for that old-time conservative religion.

Mr. Hudak lost the October election to Dalton McGuinty because, coasting on a fat pre-election lead, he got sloppy. Evidently deciding his popularity represented a surge of support for the uglier side of right-wing politics, he started muttering about the need for chain gangs, tougher sentences and an end to special privileges for “foreign” workers. Liberals, grateful for the gift, successfully used it to portray the Tories as a bunch of Alabama-lite rednecks, and won themselves four more years of deficit spending.

So now Mr. Hudak thinks the problem was that he strayed too much from the message. “The fact of the matter is that I, as your leader, did not give sufficient voice to a bold, conservative alternative.”

Mr. Romney has a slightly different problem. Like the first George Bush, he can’t convince the party faithful he really, truly believes in the kind of fundamental conservative principles that sustain them in their struggle against the godless Democrats. His history on abortion is wishy-washy. He brought in Obama-like health care while governor of Massachusetts. He’s a Mormon, which in America can still be found in the dictionary under “weird”.

So he’s turned his campaign for the nomination into a full-time revivalist meeting in which, rather than convert his audience, he struggles to convince them he’s the one who’s found religion. He says he’d do everything he can to kill Obamacare. He’d keep the troops in Afghanistan indefinitely. He’d happily bomb Iran if that was necessary. And he doesn’t care a whit about the poor:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling,” Romney said.

Probably just a bad choice of words intended to demonstrate his awareness of middle class struggles, but unfortunately it fits suspicions that 1. filthy rich as he is, he really hasn’t a clue what it’s like to be poor (or even middle class) and 2. he’ll say anything to get the nomination.

The thing is, there’s no real evidence that being more conservative is a winning strategy, either in Canada or the U.S. Ontario was a Progressive Conservative bastion for 43 years precisely because its brand of conservatism at the time was a model of moderation. It’s true that Mike Harris won two majorities by taking a tougher line, but Harris was largely a reaction to the disastrous NDP government of Bob Rae and a yearning for a return to order. Since his departure there’s hardly been an outpouring of demand for a return to confrontation, conflict and bungled privatizations. If anything, Stephen Harper provided a lesson in finally gaining his majority by moving relentlessly away from the fire-breathing Reform message he delivered in his early days, and co-opting much of the middle ground the Liberals left undefended.

The same could be said of the U.S. Maybe Mr. Romney hasn’t noticed, but all the candidates who have been driven from the nomination race so far have more bona fide conservative credentials than he does. Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Perry all positioned themselves to the right of Mr. Romney, and are old news. Newt Gingrich is going nowhere with his claim that he’s the only real conservative in the race. Ron Paul has his fiercely loyal fan club, but it appears to be no bigger than it ever was. And the sudden flirtation with Rick Santorum smells a lot like it results from the fact there’s simply no one else left to dance with.

Why, then, do Hudak and Romney think it’s a good idea to be more like the people who failed? In Canada, people like the conservative notion of careful budgeting, government restraint and individual responsibility. They’re not big-time into the less-attractive side of the party which — as Mr. Hudak’s campaign displayed with its slights at foreign workers and gays — can be a bit ugly. Mr. Harper has made a practice of isolating and silencing the yahoos; if they want to vote for him, fine, but he’s not going to pretend their views are broad vote-getters.

Mr. Romney might ponder that message. His main attraction is that his moderate record might attract the independent voters who are the key to success against Barack Obama. The more he disavows it in favour of a strange stew containing the blended wisdom of Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, the less his chances of success. Like Mr. Hudak, he appears to be running to win over his party at the possible cost of winning election.

The inestimable American essayist, E.B. White, once wrote that he preferred gravel or even dirt roads to paved ones, because paved roads lacked personality. By that standard, Republican presidential-nominee candidate Mitt Romney is a paved road; his chief rival, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, is the gravel kind.

There is absolutely no mystery why Mr. Gingrich beat Mr. Romney by nearly 13 points in last Saturday’s South Carolina primary, after Mr. Romney had held a substantial lead in the polls until the contest’s final days. Nor is there any doubt why polls in the next primary state — Florida — have flipped almost overnight from a double-digit lead for Mr. Romney to an eight- or nine-point lead for Mr. Gingrich. Mr. Gingrich’s passion connects with Republican voters in a way Mr. Romney has never managed — not in this campaign nor in the last one in 2008.

Mr. Romney is dull, solid, smooth and grey. Those may be fine traits in a CEO or husband and father (or a road), but they are less desirable in a presidential candidate. Fair or not, a potential president has to inspire passion in voters, something Mr. Romney simply cannot do. Republicans are likely willing to accept Mr. Romney as their candidate to face current U.S. President Barack Obama, but they are not enthusiastic about it.

Republican voters have tested several candidates as the non-Romney. First it was Donald Trump, then Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Mr. Gingrich, Rick Santorum and now Mr. Gingrich again. This series of shooting-star alternatives (bright flares that rise quickly to the lead in polls, then just as quickly flame out) shows one clear thing: Beyond a consistent 25% of registered Republicans, GOP supporters want someone, anyone other than the former Massachusetts governor. That’s a stunning vote of non-confidence.

Between Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich there is a single, ideal candidate — if only there was some way to combine the best qualities of the two of them.

Mr. Romney is a decent family man. Newt’s marital history is, um, somewhat checkered. Mr. Gingrich is a skilled debater at a level the American right likely has not seen since Ronald Reagan. Mr. Romney is, shall we say, adequate in debate, but risk-averse. Mr. Gingrich is as knowledgable about the issues that will confront a president as any candidate in 20 years. He offers innovative solutions to the problems created by big government and presents them in a way that makes them appealing to ordinary voters, particularly core Republicans.

But he also believes he is the smartest person in any room, which makes him arrogant to the point of prickliness. His supreme self-confidence also makes him unwilling to listen to those he believes are his intellectual inferiors — i.e. everyone else. This inability to accept advice and ideas from those around him is what cost him the Speaker’s job in the 1990s and all of his senior campaign staff last year.

Mr. Gingrich is likely to self-destruct, either before he can win his party’s nomination or (worse for Republicans) after he wins it and while he is confronting Mr. Obama in the general election. Mr. Gingrich won in South Carolina largely because he was able to control his infamous temper and channel it into a crowd-pleasing attack on the “elite media” when asked by CNN’s John King about scurrilous accusations made by his second wife. But it is doubtful Mr. Gingrich will be able to curb his rage all the way to the White House. Always in the past, Mr. Gingrich (whose love of small-government solutions I greatly admire) has shown himself incapable of maintaining for long the kind of patience for fools he will need to secure the Republican nomination, then win the November presidential election.

If I were a Republican voter, I too would be unenthusiastic about having to nominate Mr. Romney. I would have given each challenger to him a real chance to prove him- or herself in the hope one of them would prove capable of taking the nomination from him and then defeating Mr. Obama. I understand why there is no great love for the bland, almost plastic Mitt Romney. I would be hoping against hope that he would, finally, show some ability to spark fire in the Republican base.

Take a passionate stand on some issue, Mr. Romney — any issue. For instance, now that you have released your tax returns, defend your personal wealth. Say you are proud of your achievement, but also grateful to the country that gave you the opportunity to become wealthy. Don’t apologize for being rich or even appear to be sheepish about it. Say you are committed to ensuring that future generations of Americans enjoy the same opportunities. If people question your 15% tax rate (because your income is largely from investments rather than employment), explain why it is good for all Americans that investors are given tax breaks in return for investing in business expansion and job creation. Then say that rather than see taxes on the rich raised, the better way to achieve tax equity is to make government smaller so taxes for everyone can be lowered to be nearer those enjoyed by investors.

Deviate from your script now and then. Roll up your crisply pressed sleeves once in a while. Be half as aggressive as Mr. Gingrich was in the South Carolina debates. Try to find your inner Reagan, rather than your inner Bob Dole — another decent, but bland Republican nominee who lost to a troubled, but charismatic Democratic incumbent.

But so long as Mr. Gingrich has the monopoly on fervour and you on reliability, don’t be too surprised if the bride-to-be opts for a little pre-marital lust before she returns to the groom who makes love with his socks on, at regular times each week and for a set duration. (Yawn!)

After Iowa, the circus hits the road. Stable democracies fight their electoral battles at the margins. No one needs to sweep the country; a small percentage of voters swinging one way or another is all it takes to open up an American epoch or bring one to a close.

With this in mind, who in the current line-up could (re)capture the White House for the Republicans?

The smart money is on front-runner Mitt Romney, literally. However, it may be easier for the former Massachusetts governor to wrest the presidency from the Democrats than the nomination from the Republicans. Still, if the GOP gives him the nomination, he might give them the presidency.

The current Texas governor, Rick Perry, is no longer in the running after Iowa — if the Republicans are lucky. If they aren’t lucky, he stages a comeback, wangles the nomination, and runs the Republican effort into the ground. Talking the talk is no easier than walking the walk. While Perry, if well scripted, could play a nifty president on TV — he looks the part — he couldn’t ad lib a president to save his life, not even for the duration of a middling-level debate.

Has Iowa surprise co-winner, Rick Santorum, got what it takes? To be the GOP’s choice, maybe; to be America’s, unlikely. Anecdotes about coal-miner grandfathers and developmentally challenged daughters, useful in our mawkish times, rarely take candidates all the way. Santorum seems like a decent fellow, even if a tad bellicose, but leaves one wondering who persuades ordinary-Joe politicians that they need to play up how ordinary they are. Thanks, fellows; we know it. We’d be more interested in finding out why you think you’re qualified to lead what used to be the free world.

Amazingly, it did look like Michele Bachmann for a brief and incomprehensible moment — at least, no one came up with a persuasive explanation for it — but where are the snows of yesteryear? Soon, the powdery stuff turned into slush as mysteriously as it had stuck to the slopes earlier until, after Iowa, Bachmann did the right thing and melted away with it. So did libidinous radio jockey Herman Cain, letting people start looking seriously for a successor to Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan.

Newt Gingrich? You must be kidding. True, the former House Leader is the only one in the lot who could actually do the job — I mean, do it without a tutorial, from day one — but only as a brain sitting in a Petri-dish, with the rest of his organs in deep freeze. Gingrich, a kind of Perry-in-reverse, could be a president, perhaps even a capable one, but could never play one on TV. Not looking the part, never an asset, is disqualifying in our age. So the Newt isn’t getting Republicans a darn thing. I rather expect him to damage the front-runner in acts of waspish vengeance for negative ads by the Romney machine. In that case, even if Romney gets the nomination, he’ll be effectively Newtered.

Anyone left? Why, yes, there’s Jon Huntsman, who received 745 votes (0.6%) in Iowa, but since he got them without lifting a finger, there’s no telling what the former governor of Utah might get if he actually asks people to vote for him. On paper, at least, he should do as well against the incumbent as Gov. Romney and should have less trouble getting the nomination.

Is that the lot? Not unless you disregard the implausible doctor, and you shouldn’t. Ron Paul, a 75-year-old congressman from Texas, a grandfather figure playing Pied Piper to the youngest, most wired generation of Republicans, is the maverick who actually finished a very close third in Iowa, demonstrating how marvelous — and dangerous — democracy really is. While it’s unlikely that Dr. Paul could take the White House form Obama, and even less likely that he would ever get the Republican nod to try, he would, as a quasi-libertarian, probably make a president closest to the vision of America’s Founding Fathers.

Their vision, of course, was an 18th century vision — after all, they lived in the 18th century. It was a fine vision, suffused with the spirit of liberty, and it’s heartening to hear it echo two centuries later between an old doctor and his young disciples. It’s a different question whether a vision that fit a sparsely populated agricultural society 200-plus years ago can be directly transplanted into a 21st-century superpower without injury. Conditions have changed; concepts have acquired new meanings. I expect delegates in New Hampshire and points beyond to put Dr. Paul’s heart in the right place, a Petri-dish next to Newt Gingrich’s brain.

Which leaves one candidate with the capacity to return the White House to the Republicans — and he’s no slouch. For the last four years he has been on the job, working tirelessly at home and aboard, developing and implementing ideas for America, one scarier and more ill-advised than the next. He’s the GOP’s secret weapon, who may do it by November. My money is on Barack Obama.

At some point the temptation may become overwhelming for some kindly party elder to sit down with other Republicans, pat them gently on the hand, thank them for their effort but suggest that just maybe 2012 isn’t their year for the White House and perhaps it would be wise to begin planning now for a better showing in 2016.

There’s no shame in losing, if you put in your best effort. Little kids all over the country have had the talk with Dad or Mom, when they didn’t make the local hockey team or weren’t asked back for a second crack at ballet school. Look at it as a challenge: a chance to bear down, get in some extra practise and be that much better when the next set of tryouts comes around.

For a brief moment on Wednesday, Republicans thought that maybe they’d squared the circle. They didn’t have to vote for Mitt Romney, but could still put forward a reasonable conservative for the showdown against President Obama. Then someone thought to Google Rick Santorum (which no one had done earlier because nobody thought he had a snowball’s chance of winning.)

Uh oh. Santorum isn’t just against abortion for any reason, he’s got doubts about any kind of contraception at all. He considers intelligent design a valid scientific theory and at one time wanted it taught in science class (a suggestion he’s backtracked on to some extent). He figures Iran is the centre of “Islamic fascism” and says he’d bomb its nuclear sites if he was president and they didn’t shape up. And he thought it was “remarkable for a black man” like Obama to have moderate vies on abortions, given that black folks have so many abortions.

This is not a great way to become president. Even among conservatives, it’s a bit much to oppose any kind of contraception, from cold showers to gritting your teeth and locking your knees together. If this was the 14th century, Santorum would presumably be against chastity belts on the grounds that princesses should just say no. Being a politician, Santorum finds a way to dance around his position, arguing that states have the right to pass anti-contraception laws, and Washington and the courts should stay out of it:

“You shouldn’t create constitutional rights when states do dumb things,” Santorum said. “Let the people decide if the states are doing dumb things get rid of the legislature and replace them as opposed to creating constitutional laws that have consequences that were before them.”

This is the same argument the South used to support slavery, and which GOP candidates have used to oppose same-sex marriage. It’s not that they hate gays, you see, it’s just that they support the states’ right to make anti-gay laws if they see fit. “States’ rights” has become a convenient way for federal politicians to support positions that provoke opposition in a large segment of the population, while pretending it’s all about a constitutional point of principle.

As for “intelligent design” — well, we’ve been through that. If people want to believe God put people on Earth, it’s entirely their right. But religion isn’t science, and teaching it as such just doesn’t attract a lot of support. And pledging to bomb Iran may feel good when you spit it out, but the U.S. just recently pulled its last forces out of Iraq and can hardly wait for the chance to exit Afghanistan as well. Provoking a new war against the most fanatic country in the region would seem more than just a little ill-advised, if only from the perspective of timing. (The Iraq war cost maybe $1 trillion, Rick, at a time you’re vowing to reduce spending)

So after working their way through brief flings with Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, all of whom were tried and rejected after voters got to know them better and decided they weren’t quite ready for prime time (not to mention having some really weird ideas), you can imagine how Iowa voters felt when they stumbled on Rick Santorum and thought, hey, maybe this guy isn’t quite as unelectable as we thought! Only to discover that — surprise! — he is.

Poor GOP. Really guys, maybe it’s time to take a pass. Look around, find someone for 2016 who can actually win votes outside six or eight of the most fervently religious pockets of the country. It’s a big country, it can be done.

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/05/kelly-mcparland-maybe-gop-should-just-skip-2012-altogether/feed/0stdsantorumAndrew Coyne: Primary process works in the U.S., but a bad fit for Canadahttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/04/andrew-coyne-primaries-work-in-iowa-but-a-bad-fit-for-canada/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/04/andrew-coyne-primaries-work-in-iowa-but-a-bad-fit-for-canada/#commentsThu, 05 Jan 2012 04:53:21 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=62895

The Iowa caucuses may have an indifferent record of predicting who will go on to become a party’s nominee for president, but they have a pretty good record of predicting who won’t. Since 1976, no candidate has won the nomination of either party who finished worse than third in Iowa. So: better luck next time, Newt Gingrich. Goodbye, Rick Perry. Thank you, Michele Bachmann. You have delighted us long enough.

That’s not a message that all of them are quite yet ready to hear. Though Bachmann has dropped out, Perry will apparently make a goal-line stand in South Carolina. As for Gingrich, he seems prepared to devote whatever is left of his campaign to destroying Mitt Romney’s. Bizarrely, he insists he will do this without going negative. (“You can do that pretty happily. You can have happy music.”) His glowering, truculent post-Iowa speech captured the contradictions in his mood: to hell with everybody, and let’s win there.

The Republican race has attracted a good deal of criticism, both for the quality of the candidates — this is without a doubt the weakest GOP field in living memory — and for the seeming fickleness of the party’s conservative base, who have shifted their support from one candidate to another in search of someone who can defeat the front-running Romney. Personally, I think it speaks well of the voters that they have been unwilling to settle for Romney, a man of undoubted accomplishment but soul-destroying vacuity on the stump. And it speaks well of the American system that it gives them so much time to shop around.

The endless, elephantine process of electing an American president — the first candidate declared officially in early 2011, almost two years before the event, and preparations would have been under way many months before that — costly and tiresome as it may be, is probably also essential. America’s population is vast, fractious, and distracted. It is a country of unusually intense enthusiasms, on the one hand, and unusual disconnectedness from politics on the other, and in the gap between the two is the potential for disaster. One could well imagine, in a less searching process, a Herman Cain suddenly being propelled into the nomination, or indeed elected.

The sheer length of the ordeal is a good test of a candidate’s seriousness. Under such close scrutiny for so long, the refreshing newcomer of the first month is often revealed as the mistake-prone rookie of the second — and perhaps the battle-hardened survivor of the months that follow. For as pitiless as it is at winnowing the unready, it also gives second chances to those who deserve it. It is how well a candidate wears with the voters over time that decides things, as well it should: the stakes are too high for summer crushes, not only for the country but the world.

Does such a process recommend itself to Canada, then? Should our political parties choose their leaders by open primaries, as the Liberals are considering doing, with not only registered party members but anyone expressing support for the party eligible to vote — and with different regions voting at different times, as in the States, albeit over a period of weeks rather than months? Certainly there are Liberals who favour the proposal, in the hope that it will expand and energize the party’s base. But is there a case that it is in the public interest?

National PostCLICK TO ENLARGE

The necessity would seem less evident than in the American example. We have neither the population nor the capacity to do such good or harm in the world. More to the point, our systems are very different. A candidate for president is elected for that purpose only: they do not sit in Parliament as party leader between elections, where the public may have several years to take their measure, but are often thrust onto the national stage straight from governing some small state or other, if they are not new to politics altogether.

While a prime minister is more powerful than a president in many ways, moreover, they are supposed to govern at all times at Parliament’s pleasure. Make a truly terrible choice for president, and you are stuck with him for four years, short of impeachment. Whereas a prime minister may in theory be removed at any time. The question for our politics is how to make the reality closer to the theory: to giver Parliament generally, and Members of Parliament individually, greater powers to check the executive.

Which brings us back to the Liberals. The simplest way for the party to broaden its appeal, it seems to me, is to make itself more appealing — to make membership in the party a more meaningful and rewarding experience. Far from giving members and non-members alike the right to vote in party elections, that would suggest going in the opposite direction: towards restricting the right to vote to those with a demonstrated commitment to the party. Membership is meaningless enough as it is, when so many nominations are decided either by mass sales of instant memberships, or by the party leaders. Liberals need to fix that, not make it worse.

More powerful party members would mean more accountable candidates and MPs. The more accountable MPs were, the more power they would have to hold the party leader to account. Parliamentary reform starts with party reform, and neither suggests going to open primaries.

Postmedia News

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/04/andrew-coyne-primaries-work-in-iowa-but-a-bad-fit-for-canada/feed/0stdRepublican presidential candidate Mitt Romney greets supporters during a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire, a day after he beat Rick Santorum by only eight votes in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses.CLICK TO ENLARGESheldon Alberts: Rick Perry continues drive for president as Michele Bachmann leaves racehttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/04/sheldon-alberts-rick-perry-continues-drive-for-president-as-republican-field-narrows/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/04/sheldon-alberts-rick-perry-continues-drive-for-president-as-republican-field-narrows/#commentsWed, 04 Jan 2012 21:42:32 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=62842

DES MOINES, Iowa — Michele Bachmann never got her miracle — and now she’s out of the Republican presidential race.

The 55-year-old Minnesota congresswoman announced Wednesday she was suspending her campaign after a miserable sixth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

“The people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so I have decided to stand aside,” Bachmann said at a morning news conference. “I have no regrets, none whatsoever. We never compromised our principles.”

Bachmann’s announcement came as Texas governor Rick Perry, who finished fifth in Iowa, indicated he plans to continue his campaign.

The Texas governor won just 6% of the Iowa vote despite spending $4-million in ads here and campaigning extensively in the past several weeks.

But Perry told reporters Wednesday that he believes Iowa’s caucuses were “quirky” and didn’t reflect the broader Republican electorate.

“We’re going to go into places where they have actual primaries and there are going to be real Republicans voting,” he said.

“The fact is, it was a pretty loosey-goosey process, and you had a lot of people who were there that admitted they were Democrats voting in the caucuses last night, so we’re going.”

Perry’s decision surprised one prominent Texas political analyst who contends there’s now little chance he can become the GOP nominee.

Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said Perry must hope conservative Republicans in states like South Carolina abandon Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul — all of whom bested him in Iowa. He also needs to convince donors to continue to fund his campaign after the Iowa flop.

“This is like trying to make a three-corner bank shot, blindfolded,” said Jillson, making a billiards reference.

She got just 5% of the Iowa total. Her 6,073 votes were barely more than her numbers in the much-smaller Iowa straw poll last summer.

Bachmann, operating on a shoestring budget, spent the past three weeks on a whirlwind tour of all 99 Iowa counties.

She courted the state’s evangelical conservatives with a stump speech that was heavy on religious references, even as polls showed her campaign flatlining on the Hawkeye State flatlands.

“This isn’t just about polling,” Bachmann told an interviewer on the weekend. “I think Tuesday night people are going to be seeing a miracle.”

Bachmann, who was born in Iowa, entered the Republican campaign last spring promising to repeal health care legislation and financial industry reforms passed by President Barack Obama’s Democrats.

As she departed the race, Bachmann warned that the health care bill “endangered the very survival” of America and had become a “playground” for left-wing social engineering.

“I ran because I believed, since day one, that Barack Obama’s policies, based on socialism, are destructive to the very foundation of our republic,” she said. “I will continue fighting to defeat the president’s agenda of socialism.”

It’s unclear whether Bachmann’s departure will have any notable impact on the race’s dynamic as the remaining candidates prepare for the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 10 and the subsequent South Carolina primary.

Former Pennsylvania senator Santorum, like Bachmann a social conservative, is likely to seek the congresswoman’s endorsement and try to win over whatever remaining supporters she has outside of Iowa. Santorum lost the Iowa caucuses to Mitt Romney by eight votes.

Bachmann had risen to national prominence as a fervent supporter of the small-government Tea Party wing of the Republican party. She founded the congressional Tea Party caucus. But despite her influence in the movement, many Tea Partiers in Iowa threw their support behind Santorum and libertarian Texas congressman Ron Paul.

Her campaign was also marred by some early blunders. In March, she mistakenly told an audience in Concord, New Hampshire, that the city was the place where the Revolutionary War began. The famous “shot heard round the world” was actually fired in Massachusetts.

Postmedia News

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/04/sheldon-alberts-rick-perry-continues-drive-for-president-as-republican-field-narrows/feed/0stdRick Perry speaks with supporters after hearing the results of the Iowa caucus at the Sheraton on Tuesday in West Des Moines, Iowa.Michele Bachmann alongside her husband Marcus Bachmann and mother Jean LaFave speaks during a news conference after ending her campaign for Republican presidential candidate on January 4, 2012 in West Des Moines, Iowa. Bachmann finished sixth in the Iowa caucus, well behind first and second place finishers Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.After Iowa, what’s next for the Republican candidates not named Mitt Romneyhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/04/after-iowa-whats-next-for-the-republican-candidates-not-named-mitt-romney/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/04/after-iowa-whats-next-for-the-republican-candidates-not-named-mitt-romney/#commentsWed, 04 Jan 2012 19:01:20 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=125879

After a breathtakingly close set of Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney has established himself as the clear front-runner in the race for the U.S. Republican nomination. As Romney prepares for New Hampshire, where he has a commanding lead in the polls, the rest of the field are assessing their campaigns.

The results surprised many, with some candidates surging (Rick Santorum) and others not getting the boost they needed (Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry). Considering the results (below), what are the candidates going to do to chase down Romney?

More than 122,000 votes were cast in the caucuses.

Mitt Romney: 30,015 votes/25%

Rick Santorum: 30,007/25%

Ron Paul: 26,186 votes/21%

Newt Gingrich: 16,251 votes/13%

Rick Perry: 2,604 votes/10%

Michele Bachmann: 6,073 votes/5%

John Huntsman: 745 votes/<1%

MICHELE BACHMANN

REUTERS/Brian FrankBachmann hugs a supporter at her Iowa Caucus night rally in West Des Moines, Iowa, January 3, 2012

Michele Bachmann never got her miracle — and now she’s out of the Republican presidential race. The 55-year-old Minnesota congresswoman announced Wednesday morning she was suspending her campaign after a miserable sixth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. “The people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so I have decided to stand aside,” Ms. Bachmann said at a morning news conference in Des Moines. “I have no regrets, none whatsoever. We never compromised our principles.” The Iowa result was a devastating one for the third-term lawmaker, who showed a flash of promise when she won the state’s presidential straw poll last summer. Ms. Bachmann, operating on a shoestring budget, spent the past three weeks on a whirlwind tour of all 99 Iowa counties. She courted the state’s evangelical conservatives with a stump speech that was heavy on religious references, even as polls showed her campaign flatlining on the Hawkeye State flatlands. As she departed the race, Ms. Bachmann warned that the health care bill “endangered the very survival” of America and had become a “playground” for left-wing social engineering. Postmedia News

Rick Santorum scored a major victory by taking Iowa’s Republican nominating contest right down to the wire — now all he needs are money, staff, and infrastructure to keep his momentum going. Mr. Santorum’s success, after months of trailing badly in the polls, resulted from a dogged strategy of visiting each of the state’s 99 counties and engaging in the traditional retail politics that Iowans love. “Game on!” Mr. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, said late on Tuesday at his victory party. To ensure that voters in other states pick him too, Mr. Santorum has a lot of ground to make up. His lack of organization outside of Iowa may make it hard to capitalize on his strong showing in the first nominating vote. However, rivals have already begun to highlight what they say was his record as a backer of big government spending in the Senate and his endorsement of Romney in the 2008 Republican race. Those arguments will take centre stage in New Hampshire, the next state to hold a nominating contest. Mr. Santorum is also planning to buy ads in South Carolina where he has a good chance to pick up the strong evangelical Christian vote because of his “family values” message.” Reuters

Jeff Haynes/ReutersRon Paul is worried about the violence his policies could spark in the U.S.: ”Some people aren’t going to be convinced so easily that you don’t owe them a living.”

Few Republican strategists expect Ron Paul to make it to the White House, but the Iowa results showed that at least he will be a force to be reckoned with in the primaries, and in his party’s politics. If he can carry some of his momentum to other states, Mr. Paul will likely have more influence in the national Republican Party’s platform, a goal of many of his supporters who say their anti-Fed, anti-debt and anti-war movement and message is just as important as Mr. Paul’s candidacy, writes The New York Times. With New Hampshire looking like going to Mitt Romney, Mr. Paul must now look to the next contest in South Carolina where he is running third in polls. The New York Times said Mr. Paul has begun running ads in the state that highlight his anti-abortion appeal to social conservatives and his military record

NEWT GINGRICH

Jeff Haynes/ReutersNewt Gingrich has seen his numbers slip in the last week.

Newt Gingrich is battered but still alive. Hit by plummeting poll numbers in recent days, Mr. Gingrich is likely now to hold on until the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21 and hope for the backing of conservatives there.

His main rival, Mitt Romney, is expected to handily win the next vote, in New Hampshire on Tuesday, leaving South Carolina as the main battleground in the early balloting for the Republican nomination. Mr. Gingrich on Tuesday night again attacked a series of negative ads targetting him. He also described himself as “a Ronald Reagan conservative who helped change Washington in the 1980s.” He called Mr. Romney a “timid Massachusetts moderate … (who) would be pretty good at managing the decay but has given no evidence in his years in Massachusetts of any ability to change the culture, or change the political structure, or change the government.” Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said he doubted Mr. Gingrich could last long beyond the South Carolina vote. “He can carry on a bit more maybe through South Carolina but he doesn’t have the juice,” Mr. Smith said. Reuters

RICK PERRY

REUTERS/John GressRick Perry listens to a potential voter as he campaigns at the Coffee Corner in Washington, Iowa December 29, 2011

Texas Governor Rick Perry, seen just months ago as a strong contender to become the 2012 Republican U.S. presidential nominee, said he would reassess his White House bid after a distant fifth place showing in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses. “I have decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight’s caucus to determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race,” Mr. Perry, who had led polls of Republican presidential candidates after he jumped into the race in August but committed a series of gaffes on the campaign trail, told supporters. A source close to the campaign said Mr. Perry was running out of money and did not want to go into debt. Reuters

JON HUNTSMAN

Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesRepublican Jon Huntsman

The former Utah governor did not campaign in Iowa, dismissing it as unimportant. He is counting on a strong showing in New Hampshire on Jan. 10. “The issue is going to be trust in the 2012 election cycle,” he told a crowd in Peterborough, New Hampshire. “People want to know your core. They want to know you have a consistent, predictable core. I haven’t been on three sides of all the issues. I ran a state that was No. 1 in job creation as opposed to No. 47. I’ve lived overseas four times. … The kind of experience I bring is unlike anyone else in the race.” In New Hampshire, he is currently polling in fourth place.

DES MOINES, Iowa — U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann ended her campaign to become the 2012 Republican presidential nominee on Wednesday and called on supporters to rally behind the party’s eventual choice.

Iowa-born Bachmann ignored shouted questions from reporters on whom she would endorse.

“Last night the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice and so I have decided to stand aside … I will not be continuing in this race for the presidency,” Bachmann told a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa.

Bachmann said Republicans must unite behind the Republican presidential nominee to roll back Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul and “take back our country.”

Related

REUTERS/Brian FrankBachmann hugs a supporter at her Iowa Caucus night rally in West Des Moines, Iowa, January 3, 2012

“I believe that we must rally around the person that our country and our party and our people select to be that standard bearer,” she told aides, reporters and supporters gathered at her hotel.

She hugged several weeping aides before climbing aboard her campaign bus.

Her announcement came a day after she received only 5% of the vote in the Iowa nominating caucuses, dealing what many saw as a fatal blow to her presidential ambitions.

Her decision to pull out could favor rival Rick Santorum, who narrowly came in second to Mitt Romney in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses.

Santorum, Bachmann and Texas Governor Rick Perry have been courting support from evangelical Christians. If a significant number of evangelicals eventually rally behind Santorum, his long-shot campaign could receive a major boost.

Bachmann, 55, was once a leading light for evangelical voters in Iowa but garnered only 5 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s first contest to pick a candidate to challenge Obama in the November election.

National Post GraphicsClick to enlarge

Those results raised the already colossal odds against Bachmann’s bid.

Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, and Ron Paul, a Texas congressman with libertarian views, garnered a larger percentage of the crucial conservative vote and are now the leading alternatives to front-runner Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, as the candidates prepare for the next voting contest in New Hampshire on January 10.

Bachmann shot to the top of polls in August after winning the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa, but later suffered from staff departures and fundraising troubles. By the end of December, her popularity had dwindled in the state.

Meanwhile Perry, having hinted he might drop out after coming in fifth, teased supporters by saying in a tweet Wednesday: “And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State… Here we come South Carolina!!!”

Perry also told supporters: “With the voters’ decision tonight in Iowa, I have decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight’s caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race.”

Last in the Iowa poll was former China ambassador Jon Huntsman who did not campaign in the state at all, focusing instead on New Hampshire which holds the nation’s first primary of the 2012 elections on Tuesday.

South Carolina will vote next on Saturday, January 21, followed by election heavyweight Florida on January 31.

The unruly field of Republican hopefuls vying to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in November is likely to narrow even further after Super Tuesday on March 6, when more than 10 states will pick their choice for party nominee.

DES MOINES, Iowa — Mitt Romney was declared the winner of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation Republican presidential caucuses early Wednesday following an epic battle with Rick Santorum that added an extra dash of drama to an already volatile GOP race.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, prevailed over Santorum with a razor-thin eight-vote victory that was more symbolic than substantial. With 100% of Iowa’s precinct reporting, Romney had received 30,015 votes.

Santorum, a former two-term Pennsylvania senator, had the support of 30,007 Iowa Republicans. It was the closest result in the history of the Iowa caucuses. More than 122,000 votes were cast.

The final results were announced just after 2:30 a.m. Eastern by Iowa Republican Party chairman Matt Strawn following several hours of mystery over missing results from a single eastern Iowa precinct that determined the winner.

Ron Paul, a 76-year-old libertarian congressman from Texas, finished a close third with 26,186 votes.

Paul’s fellow Texan, Governor Rick Perry, announced he was returning home to “assess” his candidacy “and determine whether there is a path forward” after a disappointing fifth-place finish.

The outcome highlighted the deep divisions among Iowa Republicans over the GOP candidates and, to an extent, reflected the broader national tumult that has characterized the party’s presidential race for several months.

The Iowa caucus results provide a significant boost for Santorum, who until recently was considered an also-ran in the Republican race. He benefited from a late surge of support from conservative voters seeking an alternative to Romney.

“There’s going to be a rematch,” Santorum said, eyeing the upcoming New Hampshire primary on Jan. 10. “We’re going to go to New Hampshire and take [Romney] on.”

National PostCLICK TO ENLARGE

Santorum’s arrival in the top tier of the GOP field, though, could bring new attacks on a candidate who has endured no serious scrutiny from the media or his Republican rivals. After building his entire campaign around success in Iowa, Santorum will also face a challenge building a national organization to capitalize on his strong Iowa showing.

The victory gave Romney a measure of political redemption in the Hawkeye State after losing the state’s 2008 presidential caucuses to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

But the Iowa results provided little immediate clarity about the strength of Romney’s campaign going forward.

Romney spent less time campaigning in the Hawkeye State than any of the other major candidates ahead of Tuesday’s voting and, at times, sought to downplay Iowa’s importance in the 2012 election cycle.

Romney’s conservative critics are likely to see his failure to break away from the GOP pack as further evidence the party’s Tea Party wing and its religious right are still unenthusiastic about his candidacy.

Supporters will contend their candidate a stronger-than-expected finish in a state that has been historically cool to the former governor.

Speaking before the final results were in, Romney said the Iowa caucuses were a “great victory” for both himself and Santorum.

The top-three finish by Paul could bring some new energy to his campaign even as it will chagrin establishment Republicans who contend his antiwar foreign policy and civil libertarianism put him outside the GOP mainstream.

REUTERS/John GressRepublican presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum pauses as he address his Iowa Caucus night rally in Johnston, Iowa, Tuesday.

“This movement is going forward and we are going to keep scoring, just as we’ve done tonight,” Paul told supporters.

“We will go on. We will raise the money. I have no doubt about the volunteers. They will be there. There is nothing to be ashamed of, everything to be satisfied with.”

Many longtime Republican activists, however, see little growth potential for Paul beyond Iowa.

While the race was still in flux at the top of the Republican field, the early results were a crushing disappointment for three other candidates — Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

Gingrich, who had led in Iowa polls before Christmas, was fourth with 13 per cent in early results.

Perry, who in September led the GOP field, was fifth with 10 per cent of votes. Bachmann, who was born in Iowa and courted evangelical voters by emphasizing her religious faith, had five per cent of the votes.

Along with Perry, Bachmann will face immediate questions about the viability of her candidacy.

The GOP campaign now moves next week to New Hampshire, where Romney launched his presidential campaign in June and is considered a prohibitive favourite.

Gingrich, whose support plummeted amid a barrage of negative advertising from Romney allies, vowed to remain in the race.

He congratulated Santorum for a “positive” campaign, but said the ads against him by Romney’s allies were “shameful.”

REUTERS/Joshua LottRon Paul

“We are at the beginning of an extraordinarily important campaign,” Gingrich said.

“There will be a great debate in the Republican party before we are prepared to have a great debate with Barack Obama.”

A Suffolk University poll released Tuesday showed Romney with a sizable advantage in the Granite State, leading with 43 per cent support. Paul was a distant second with 16 per cent support, and Gingrich had nine per cent. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who skipped the Iowa caucuses to focus on New Hampshire, had 10 per cent support.

The size of Romney’s New Hampshire lead sets up a potentially bruising week of campaigning in the Granite State as rivals aim to cut into his supports.

The Republican candidates will debate in New Hampshire on the weekend, and Gingrich has already warned he’ll be taking a far more aggressive posture toward Romney.

In a television interview on Tuesday, Gingrich called Romney a “liar” who was trying to escape responsibility for negative attack ads against him by a political group with strong ties to the former Massachusetts governor.

“It’s baloney. He’s not telling the American people the truth,” Gingrich said.

“We have run a relentlessly positive campaign. Our ads have been positive. The speeches have been positive,” Gingrich said. “You can refuse to vote for anyone who has run negative ads.”

With Romney so far ahead in New Hampshire polls, some of his Republican rivals have decided to focus their efforts in South Carolina, which will hold its first-in-the-South primary on Jan. 21.

Prior to his disappointing finish, Perry had planned to head directly from Iowa to South Carolina, where polls show GOP voters are skeptical about Romney’s conservative credentials.

Some evangelical South Carolinians are also uncomfortable with Romney’s Mormon faith.

Perry, who had planned to campaign in South Carolina from Wednesday to Friday, said he believes southern Republicans “are going to pick the true, authentic conservative, not a conservative of convenience that Mitt Romney is.”

Romney, for his part, adopted a classic front-runner strategy on Tuesday and tried to stay above the fray.

The former governor, who on Monday predicted he would ultimately win the GOP nomination, made no mention at all of his Republican opponents during a morning campaign rally in Des Moines.

He focused instead on Obama, hitting the Democratic president for failing to deter Iran from pursuing its nuclear program and foundering in efforts to jump-start the U.S. economy.

Romney also cast Obama as a nanny-state liberal who favoured an expansion of government that hinders American freedom.

“We are an opportunity nation. We’re a nation based upon merit,” Romney said.

“I think the president would take us in a different direction. I think he believes America should become a European-style welfare state.”

Here is a look at key dates in the race. Some are subject to change.

Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses

Jan. 7 Republican debate in Manchester, New Hampshire

Jan. 8 Republican debate in Concord, New Hampshire

Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary

Jan. 16 Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Jan. 19 Republican debate in Charleston, South Carolina

Jan. 21 South Carolina primary

Jan. 23 Republican debate in Tampa, Florida

Jan. 26 Republican debate in Jacksonville, Florida

Jan. 31 Florida primary

Feb. 4 Nevada caucus, Maine caucus begins (through Feb. 11)

Feb. 7 Colorado and Minnesota caucuses, Missouri primary

Feb. 11 Maine presidential caucus ends

Feb. 22 Republican debate in Mesa, Arizona

Feb. 28 Arizona and Michigan primaries

March 1 Republican debate in Georgia

March 3 – Washington caucuses

March 6 “Super Tuesday” primaries and caucuses across the country including Ohio, Massachusetts, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia; Idaho (Republican), Alaska (Republican) and North Dakota (Republican). Wyoming’s caucus begins March 6 and runs through March 10.

DES MOINES, Iowa — Michele Bachmann’s struggling White House bid has been dealt a major blow ahead of the first Republican nominating contest with the defection of her Iowa campaign manager to rival Ron Paul.

Kent Sorenson made the switch after attending a Wednesday campaign event for Bachmann, who bristled sharply at the defection and demanded accountability from Paul’s campaign.

Republicans vying for the presidential nomination are criss-crossing the US heartland state this week ahead of the January 3 Iowa caucuses, which are the first real test of the field and can kill off or boost a campaign.

“We just appreciate his support and believe that he has made a good choice and that Ron Paul is the best candidate that the Republican Party can nominate because he has the best chance of beating Obama in November,” Ivers told AFP.

In a statement Sorenson said his decision was “one of the most difficult I have made in my life. But given what’s at stake for our country, I have decided I must take this action.”

Sorenson was more blunt in front of reporters.

Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota, “is not in the top tier,” he said on Iowa television. “She is not in the position to beat Mitt Romney. We are.”

At a rally in Des Moines, according to the Des Moines Register, Sorenson said “We’re going to take Ron Paul all the way to the White House.”

Bachmann struck back, saying Sorenson defected because he was bought by the Paul campaign.

“Kent Sorenson personally told me he was offered a large sum of money to go to work for the Paul campaign,” Bachmann told reporters on Wednesday.

“Kent said to me yesterday that ‘Everyone sells out in Iowa, why shouldn’t I?’ Then he told me he would stay with our campaign,” she said.

After attending a Bachmann event, Sorenson “went immediately afterward to a Ron Paul event and announced he is changing teams,” Bachmann added.

Bachmann has sharpened her attacks on Paul in recent weeks as the two battle for the support of social conservatives, who have a major influence on Iowa politics.

On Wednesday she told Fox News that Paul would be “dangerous as a president because of his foreign policy.”

Paul, who is largely opposed to foreign aid and interventions and has been under fire for his stances on national security, Iran and Israel.

Romney is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, ahead of former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, whose support in Iowa and second-state-to-vote New Hampshire has fallen sharply in recent days.

The eventual winner of the state-by-state primary voting process earns the right to take on President Barack Obama for the White House in the general election in November 2012.

LONDON — From whale sperm to colon cleansers to the shape of a woman’s foot when she has an orgasm, celebrities did not disappoint during 2011 with their penchant for peddling suspect science in the world’s media.

In its annual list of what it considers the year’s worst abuses against science, the Sense About Science (SAS) campaign named reality TV star Nicole Polizzi (aka Snooki), Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann and American singer-songwriter Suzi Quatro as top offenders, with their dubious views on why the sea is salty, the risks of cervical cancer vaccines and the colon.

Wikimedia CommonsSuzi Quatro

“I used to get a lot of sore throats and then one of my sisters told me that all illnesses start in the colon. I started taking a daily colon cleanser powder mixed with fresh juice every morning and it made an enormous difference,” Quatro told the Daily Mail newspaper.

But SAS was keen to dispel such myths. It asked qualified scientists from various disciplines to comment on some of the worst celebrity science offences.

“The colon is very important in some diseases, but it certainly is not the cause of all illnesses,” said Melita Gordon, a consultant gastroenterologist said in the review.

“Sore throats do not come from your colon; they are caused by viruses that come in through your nose and mouth. Taking ‘colon cleansers’ has no beneficial effect on your throat – or on your colon.”

While the review is partly about entertainment, the campaign group stresses it also has a serious aim – to make sure pseudo-science is not allowed to become accepted as true.

Robert Galbraith/ReutersMichele Bachmann

After Bachmann used an appearance on a television show to tell a story of a woman from Tampa, Florida, who said her daughter had become “mentally retarded” after getting an HPV vaccine designed to protect against cervical cancer, doctors said they feared the damage done may take many years to reverse.

“It’s tempting to dismiss celebrity comments on science and health, but their views travel far and wide and, once uttered, a celebrity cancer prevention idea or environmental claim is hard to reverse,” said SAS’s managing director Tracey Brown.

“At a time when celebrities dominate the public realm, the pressure for sound science and evidence must keep pace.”

The review also highlighted a bizarre quote from TV personality Polizzi, who declared recently: “I don’t really like the beach. I hate sharks, and the water’s all whale sperm. That’s why the ocean’s salty.”

Simon Boxall, a marine expert and oceanographer dismissed Polizzi’s suggestion. “It would take a lot of whale sperm to make the sea that salty,” he said.

Some of the most intriguing pseudo-scientific suggestions came via repeated second hand information picked up at parties – never the most reliable source.

Related

Christian Louboutin, a French footwear designer, was taken with something a fellow party guest told him about shoes.

“She said that what is sexual in a high heel is the arch of the foot, because it is exactly the position of a woman’s foot when she orgasms. So putting your foot in a heel, you are putting yourself in a possibly orgasmic situation,” he explained.

Kevan Wylie, a consultant in sexual medicine, responded drily that it’s important to differentiate cause from effect.

“A woman’s foot may be in this position during orgasm, but that does not mean that putting her foot into this position under other circumstances will result in orgasm,” he said.

Reuters

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/29/from-cleansed-colons-to-orgasm-feet-celebrities-top-themselves-in-2011-bad-science-list/feed/3stdTELEVISION-SNOOKI_Suzi QuatroMichele Bachmann during a speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Thursday. Rick Perry files federal lawsuit after failing to qualify for Virginia primary ballothttp://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/28/rick-perry-files-federal-lawsuit-after-failing-to-qualify-for-virginia-primary-ballot/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/28/rick-perry-files-federal-lawsuit-after-failing-to-qualify-for-virginia-primary-ballot/#commentsWed, 28 Dec 2011 17:19:30 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=124281

WASHINGTON — Texas Governor Rick Perry filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to get on Virginia’s 2012 primary election ballot after failing to qualify by last week’s deadline.

The Republican presidential candidate failed to get the 10,000 verifiable signatures, including at least 400 qualified voters from each congressional district, required to be in the March 6 primary.

Perry is challenging the state’s qualification process on constitutional grounds, saying it restricts the access of Virginia voters to the candidates of their choosing.

Related

Virginia’s ballot access requirements are among the most onerous in the nation and severely restrict who may obtain petition signatures, the Perry campaign said in a statement.

“Gov. Perry greatly respects the citizens and history of the Commonwealth of Virginia and believes Virginia Republicans should have greater access to vote for one of the several candidates for President of the United States,” Perry campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan said.

“We believe that the Virginia provisions unconstitutionally restrict the rights of candidates and voters by severely restricting access to the ballot,” Sullivan said.

“We hope to have those provisions overturned or modified to provide greater ballot access to Virginia voters and the candidates seeking to earn their support,” he said.

The Perry lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond, names members of the state’s board of elections and the head of the state Republican party as defendants.

The Republican Party also said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Virginia resident, failed to meet the ballot qualification requirement.

Three other members of the Republican field trying to unseat Democratic President Barack Obama – former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum – did not meet the Thursday deadline for submitting petitions.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul qualified for the March primary in Virginia.

HARLAN, Iowa — It’s late afternoon on a quiet day at Leo’s Barber Shop in Harlan, Iowa and the banter has turned — as it often does — to politics.

Ronald Jensen is in the chair, freshly trimmed and clean shaven. An 81-year-old soybean farmer and lifelong Republican, Jensen knows exactly whom he likes for the Republican presidential nomination. He also knows exactly whom he doesn’t like.

Unfortunately, they’re the same person.

“The smartest man we’ve got in the Republican Party is old Newt Gingrich,” says Jensen.

“But the son of a gun has been in Washington so long, taking a lot of money. He’s been married three times.”

Leo Goeser, who has been cutting hair in this western Iowa town for 55 years, steps back from Jensen and chuckles.

He suspects the only person in America truly excited about Gingrich, or anyone else on the Republican slate, is U.S. President Barack Obama.

“It looks like he hand-picked his gosh-darned opponents,” Goeser says.

It’s meant to be a wise crack, but there’s something in Goeser’s remark that reflects a deeper anxiety in the Hawkeye State — and in conservative circles across the U.S. — about this group of GOP candidates.

Arguably the weakest field of White House hopefuls the GOP has seen in decades, it has produced no fewer than six Iowa front-runners since August. No one among them — not Rick Perry, not Michele Bachmann or Mitt Romney — has held the confidence of voters here for longer than a month.

And yet in less than two weeks, on Jan. 3, Republicans will gather in living rooms and community centres across the state and be asked to wean out the runts of the GOP litter.

But the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses are historically influential because voters take their politics seriously and have a strong track record of distinguishing contenders from pretenders.

“As a Republican, my biggest hope is that the party can bring an electable candidate,” says Arlo Burk, who runs an insurance firm in Council Bluffs.

The problem entering 2012 is that Republicans in Iowa are not only uncertain about which candidate to support, they seem generally unenthusiastic with the entire lot.

“There is so much division in the Republican Party, and there are so many Republicans who just don’t believe we can win,” says William Crum, a registered Republican from Council Bluffs, in the westernmost part of the state.

There are several reasons, all of them connected, for the unsettled nature of the race this cycle in Iowa.

It begins with a persistent distrust of Romney, who entered the Republican campaign as the presumptive front-runner.

An East Coast moderate whose politics don’t always align with the evangelical conservatism favoured among Iowa Republicans, Romney failed to excite voters early on. His decision to largely ignore Iowa, until recently, gave GOP activists ample time to evaluate potential alternatives.

Unfortunately, Iowans didn’t see much of Romney’s rivals, either.

According to experienced Iowa political hands, the 2012 cycle has seen fewer candidate visits and less television advertising than in past caucus years.

“You’ve had some very cash-strapped campaigns, quite frankly, that haven’t been able to build that large of an organization in the state,” says Matt Strawn, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party.

The proliferation of televised debates — 13 in all, so far — has also contributed to the relative dearth of personal campaigning in Iowa, and deprived voters of the chance to form firm opinions of the competitors after face-to-face meetings.

“I’ve not observed as much retail politics as I did in 2008 or, for that matter 2004, and I have been covering Iowa caucuses since the early 90s,” says Douglas Burns, a political journalist with the Daily Times Herald in Carroll, Iowa.

“The candidates are trying to rely on debates in order to connect with people here.”

Only a week ago, it seemed Iowans had fallen for Gingrich, the sharp-tongued former House Speaker who excelled in the all-candidates forums. An Insider Advantage survey taken Dec. 12 showed him leading here with 27 per cent support.

Turns out it may have been a brief political romance.

By Dec. 18, Gingrich had crashed back to 13 per cent in the Insider Advantage poll amid an ongoing bombardment of attacks about his troubled personal history and past ethical violations.

“I always liked Newt, back a long time ago, but he’s done some really dumb things in the last 10 to 15 years, and that bothers me,” says Crum.

Linda Upmeyer, an Iowa state senator who supports Gingrich, says he is facing more questions from Iowa caucus-goers about his past, particularly his two divorces and his marital infidelities.

“He responds very genuinely, very forthrightly, and talks about the fact that he knows he made mistakes,” says Upmeyer. “He has gone to his faith, asked for forgiveness. He has reconciled with God and his faith and himself. Iowans will make that decision.”

With Gingrich sliding, the latest front-runner is arguably the most unlikely one.

Ron Paul, a 76-year-old libertarian making his third run for the White House, has surged to the lead in two polls conducted in the past week.

With an army of young volunteers and a well-padded bank account, Paul has potentially the strongest political organization in Iowa of any Republican candidate.

Because a good ground game is essential to success in a presidential caucus — where voters gather in hundreds of small meetings to demonstrate their support — Paul poses a considerable threat.

“Look at the rising poll numbers. Our organization has only gotten better and stronger, as opposed to other candidates who keep on surging and then dropping, surging and dropping,” says Fernando Cortez, the Paul campaign’s controller.

“It just shows that the volatility is a lot higher with the others. Our support has been consistent through the entire race and continues to grow stronger.”

But if there’s been one constant throughout the GOP race it’s this: There is no place more dangerous for a candidate to be than atop the polls.

While Paul is popular among evangelical Christians in Iowa because of his anti-abortion views, his non-interventionist stance on U.S. foreign policy are anathema to national security Republicans.

During a debate last week in Sioux City, Paul tangled with several rivals over his view that Iran did not pose a potential nuclear threat to Israel or the U.S.

The prospect of a Ron Paul win in Iowa has set off alarms in the GOP establishment, with some arguing a victory by the libertarian would destroy the credibility of the Iowa caucuses and damage the national Republican brand.

“Ron Paul seems brilliant on some things, and on some things he’s really dumb,” says Denny Smothers, a GOP voter from Council Bluffs.

“His foreign policy scares me to death. If he doesn’t believe Iran is working on a nuclear weapon 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he’s kidding himself.”

The doubts still swirling about Paul, Gingrich and Romney — currently the top three candidates — makes for a very fluid race.

A new Washington Post-ABC News survey of likely Iowa caucus goers found that 52 per cent said they might change their mind about whom to support before Jan. 3.

“The ground is shifting under the feet of all the candidates,” says Strawn, the Iowa GOP chairman.

The wild fluctuations in polls have given new hope to candidates who had previously squandered their time in the spotlight.

Perry is in the midst of a 44-city bus tour through Iowa. His Iowa poll numbers have rebounded into the double digits — and he’s now ahead of Gingrich in one survey.

Support for Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman who won the Iowa Straw Poll in August, has also ticked upward after a fiery Sioux City debate performance in which she repeatedly challenged Gingrich on his ethics.

Bachmann is now on a tour of all 99 Iowa counties.

That commitment to grassroots campaigning could pay off for underdogs who need a strong Iowa showing to remain viable into New Hampshire and later primaries.

To win in Iowa, a candidate has to “be here,” says Strawn.

“Let an Iowan look them in the eye, kick the tires and make that final determination,” he says. “Not by seeing a television ad, but being here on the ground. That’s the best way to close the deal.”

In Leo’s Barber Shop, Jensen says he is ready to “hold my nose” and support the eventual nominee.

Goeser, however, doesn’t believe any of the Republican candidates have yet proven their mettle.

“They just keep tearing each other apart. By the time they get all done, you know what they are going to do, they are going to re-elect Obama.”

At the rate U.S. Republicans are running through frontrunners for the party’s presidential nominations, they may soon reach the end of their list and have to start over. Let’s see, that would mean Michele Bachmann should be back at the top of the pack by about Jan. 2.

Newt Gingrich, the latest claimant to the title of Temorary GOP Heartthrob, may also prove the be the shortest-lived. The former Speaker vaulted into the lead when Herman Cain became bogged down in uncomfortable questions about his sex life. Cain had succeeded Rick Perry, who had usurped Ms. Bachmann, who, like all the others, had a brief fling as favourite flavour of the heartland mainly because she wasn’t Mitt Romney. Now Newt has given way to Ron Paul, who can claim the Iowa caucuses if he can make it through two weeks without surrendering his sudden popularity.

The key to doing that may lie in preventing Americans from learning anything about him. Because the history of the campaign to date suggests that the less Republican voters know about a candidate, the more likely they are to see him or her as a potential president.

Ms. Bachmann was briefly popular because she seemed forthright and sure of herself, and did better than expected in an early debate. Then people learned that she thought homosexuality was something you could be cured of, like a disease or a bad habit. Americans may still be hesitant about sanctifying same-sex marriages, but most of them aren’t really so dim as to believe you can go gay by sitting on the wrong toilet seat.

Rick Perry was similarly lionized after initial reports indicated he’d been wildly successful as governor of Texas, attracting scads of jobs while the rest of the country was losing them by the millions. Then people discovered most of the jobs were the kind you temporarily endure while paying your way through school, and can’t wait to leave behind. Perry added to his own demise by demonstrating repeatedly that he didn’t figure a president needs to know much more about the world than you can see from Texas, and displaying a distinct difficulty in articulating sensible policies on even those few.

Perry’s decline led to the sudden enthusiasm for Cain, who may have been the oddest of the short-term wonders, but who benefited from the fact voters knew even less about him than they did about the others. And since he’d lived most of his life in relative obscurity, it took longer to dig up the embarrassing details that eventually put an end to his unlikely hopes. Gingrich was the immediate beneficiary, but Newt, unlike Cain, has spent so much of his life in the public spotlight that assembling the data to demonstrate his utter unsuitability required almost no effort at all. In fact, Democrats didn’t even have to get involved — so many eminent Republicans were eager to warn their party about the danger of Gingrich that Democrats didn’t even have to get out of bed. (Truth be told, it’s hard to imagine anyone President Barack Obama would more like to run against than the bombastic, self-destructive former Speaker, with his trail of abandoned wives and cheque stubs from government dependencies).

With the ash heap of former favourites having grown unnervingly large, GOP supporters are left with only a few more candidates they don’t know much about. There’s Rick Santorum, who just seems too bland to catch fire, even among people who don’t know much about him. And there’s Jon Huntsman, who may just be too sensible for a party determined to find itself a zealot at any cost.

So it appears they may be turning to Ron Paul. The good thing about Ron Paul is that there aren’t likely to be any surprises, since he says exactly what he thinks, and has been saying the same things for years. The bad news is that the appeal of those ideas is just as limited as it’s ever been. (You know what I said about it being hard to imagine anyone Obama would more like to run against than Gingrich? I take it back. It’s just that it’s unlikely anyone in the Democrat camp ever imagined it was possible the nominee could be Ron Paul. Situations like that are just too good to be true.)

So the Republicans have pretty much reached the end of the line. They’ve had a fling with all the plausible and semi-plausible candidates, and found them wanting. There are no more strangers out there to embrace, no more blank slates on which to project wishful thinking. There is still 11 months of campaign time until November, and already the moment has arrived when they have to admit they don’t have a candidate with a snowball’s chance of winning. Other than perhaps that Romney fella, whose appeal is so limited it started the search for an alternative in the first place.

Republican presidential candidates pounced on front-runner Newt Gingrich on Thursday to try to blunt his surge at the last debate before Iowa launches the 2012 U.S. election season.

Gingrich is in a tight race with rivals Ron Paul and Mitt Romney in Iowa less than three weeks before the state’s Republicans decide on January 3 who they want as their presidential candidate. It is anybody’s guess at this stage as to who will win.

Gingrich’s main adversary was not former Massachusetts Governor Romney as anticipated, but instead it was Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman who won Iowa’s straw poll of Republicans in August and would like to score a surprise victory here.

Bachmann repeatedly tried to raise doubts about Gingrich’s conservative principles and accused him of being a Washington lobbyist for accepting up to $1.6 million in payments from troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac, which was at the heart of America’s housing crisis.

Related

“We can’t have as our nominee for the Republican Party someone who continues to stand for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. They need to be shut down, not built up,” Bachmann said.

In a standoff over whether Gingrich in his congressional past had supported late-term abortion, Gingrich said Bachmann had her facts wrong.

Already, Gingrich is showing signs of fatigue among Republicans in this Midwestern state, an indication that they remain open to voting for someone else as a barrage of negative ads and verbal punches takes a toll on him.

A Public Policy Polling survey in Iowa this week said Gingrich’s support had dropped several percentage points and he was leading Paul narrowly by 22 percent to 21 percent, with 16 percent for Romney and Michele Bachmann at 11 percent.

All told, Gingrich appeared to hold his own at the debate and Romney might have missed a chance to follow up on attacks he has been making against the former speaker in the media all week.

“I’m very concerned about not appearing to be zany,” Gingrich said at one point, breezily making reference to a criticism of him this week by Romney.

A Reuters/Ipsos national poll this week shows Gingrich holds a 10-point lead, but that he would fare worse than Romney against President Barack Obama at next November’s election.

ROMNEY EXPLAINS POSITION CHANGES

At this debate, Romney let his rivals lead the battle against Gingrich, and adopted an above-the-fray stance, trying to establish himself as a credible alternative to Democratic Obama.

Romney gave his best answer yet to questions about why he has changed positions on some key issues during his political career. He denied changing positions on gay and gun rights and said his stance now opposing abortion evolved over time.

“Experience taught me sometime I was wrong. Where I was wrong, I’ve tried to correct myself,” he said.

Paul, who came into the debate with a head of steam and is challenging Gingrich for the lead in Iowa, stumbled in answering a question about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

He insisted there was no evidence to suggest Iran was attempting to develop a nuclear weapon and enrich uranium. A U.N. nuclear watchdog report last month said Tehran appeared to have worked on designing a nuclear weapon, and that secret research to that end may be continuing.

“There has been no enrichment in Iran,” said Paul, an anti-war libertarian.

Bachmann called him on it.

“We know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon, they will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map,” she said.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is hoping a 44-city bus tour of Iowa will allow him to rebound after a string of bad debates, compared himself to American football star quarterback Tim Tebow, who has managed to win a string of games for NFL’s Denver Broncos despite some obvious deficiencies.

“I hope I am the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses. There were a lot of folks who said Tim Tebow would not be a very good professional quarterback,” he said.

Gingrich, who has emerged as the lead conservative alternative to the more moderate Romney, compared himself to the Republicans’ iconic President Ronald Reagan. He scoffed at his rivals’ attacks on him as “kind of laughable.”

“I think people have to watch my career and decide,” said Gingrich, ticking off a conservative record he said he built up as House speaker in the 1990s.

The fact that this is the last debate before the Iowa caucuses increased pressure on Gingrich’s rivals to press the attack against him and try to raise doubts about him.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum noted that Gingrich was not well liked as House speaker.

“The speaker had a conservative revolution against him when he was speaker of the House,” said Santorum, who also subtly raised character issues about the thrice-married Gingrich, saying, “We need someone who is strong in the political and personal side.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/16/rivals-pounce-on-gingrich-at-last-iowa-debate/feed/1stdRepublican presidential candidate former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich fields a question during the Fox News Channel debate at the Sioux City Convention Center on Thursday.